Changing a voluntary HOA to a mandatory HOA

Your state laws will tell you, but this can be tricky because to be mandatory the CC&Rs must be attached to every single deed, not an especially easy task after the fact.

Step one, talk to a lawyer?

I would ask your local government (planning department) on how they plan to handle the future road issue if the lot is sold and developed. If all your residents attend future local government meetings regarding future development and scream loud enough maybe the government will take over the road and future maintenance when allowing the future development.

If you want to make the HOA non voluntary then you will need to most likely get 100% of residents to agree to have their property titles attached and which would be nearly impossible. I certainly would not agree to becoming a Mandatory HOA if currently a voluntary HOA. Also, how would you get the owner of the supposed "land locked" lot to also agree? Therefore, without that agreement how would changing protect your interests? How do you consider the road private, it is owned by your voluntary HOA? Keep in mind any land must be allowed access, so the developer lot is not necessarily land locked there must be some type of easement allowed. You might reference your Plat or again ask your local government planning department.

Many states have legal mechanisms where property owners can be forced to pay for community improvements and maintainence that they clearly use and benefit from even when no HOA exists. It is generally neccesary for the costs and work to be reasonable.

Some questions and observations for the OP
(1) What is the ownership of the roads? Normally we could expect one of three alternatives
a) unimproved publically held property
b) recorded easements upon private property
c) non recorded easements upon private property, which at this point likely are non-revocable because of becoming common or presciptive.

(2) There really is no such thing as land locked private property in the USA. While a parcel may appear land locked, a long history of case law does not expect the owners to use a parachute or helicopter to access their property, nor once there to remain for the rest or their lives. There will be a easement somewhere, even if it is only observable by anthropologists as a trail the indians used. This can be forced upon the adjacent owners unless something more agreeable to the whole is purposed.

Well said in your own way.

Jim,
Talk with and work with an HOA attorney. We currently manage two associations which are converting from Voluntary to Manditory. This requires amending your CC&Rs to allow manditory assessment when a Buyer purchases a property after the amended CC&Rs are filed with all counties in which the association physically exists.

The main difficultly is getting signed approval of the required percentage of all Units.

What's already in the works?